First Look At Arrow Season 5 Is A Buff And Bloody Oliver

Season 4 of Arrow came to an end back in May, and fans have been waiting for a glimpse of what's to come in Season 5 ever since. The finale set up some major questions of what could possibly be happening next for Oliver Queen and Co., and now, star Stephen Amell has taken to Twitter to share a first look at Oliver in Season 5. Prepare yourself for something seriously hunky and check it out:

Well, sign me up for Season 5. Stephen Amell really couldn't have picked a better picture to share via Twitter to get folks excited about what's ahead on Arrow this fall. The photo actually reveals a lot without giving away too many specific details.

The image pretty clearly depicts Flashback Oliver. The signature Bratva tattoo that has been tattooed on Oliver's chest from his very first shirtless scene back in Season 1 is absent, and he's still short a few of his most prominent scars. And unless Star City has a secret fight club chamber to go along with its secret magic chamber in city hall, we can bet that Oliver isn't anywhere near his home town for this latest bout of shirtlessness.

Stephen Amell shared a bloody first look at what can only be the origin story of Oliver as a Bratva captain, which is fabulous. If his entire origin story as Bratva Oliver requires him to bloody, wet, scruffy, and shirtless, I guess we'll just have to deal with it. I'm sure maximum dreaminess is a core requirement for moving up the ranks in the Russian mob. Less reasonable things have happened on Arrow, although we may have to suspend some disbelief that Flashback Oliver's hair could have already grown that long so soon after the big haircut of Season 4.

The glimpse of Flashback Oliver looking brooding and buff is a good sign that Arrow won't be wasting time in moving the flashbacks forward. One of the biggest problems of Season 4 was that the flashbacks tended to meander and backtrack when Oliver still had so much left to do in the past before his five years of hell were up. There really isn't much time left for Oliver to learn Russian, earn his Bratva tattoo, make it back to Lian Yu, and presumably spend a few hours applying a false mop of hair and beard to his face. If Stephen Amell already has this picture available to tweet, the flashbacks are picking up the pace again, since Season 5 only began filming last week.

Most of the news on the Arrow front recently has concerned new characters. We'll be in for some new vigilantes - one of whom will actually go by the name "Vigilante" - in Season 5, and a new villain sounds like he could bring back the type of villainy that involved more realism than magic or mysticism. Check out our breakdown of what we know so far about Arrow Season 5 for a look at what all has been released so far, and feel free to gaze at the bloody and buff picture of Stephen Amell for as long as you'd like.